A favourite past time of mine is window shopping for new and interesting things, especially if they are fashion and skincare related. Recently I was in MECCA in Myer, Sydney looking at the curated section and saw this Drunk Elephant B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Gel. I had seen a write up on the Paula's Choice review website Beautypedia and was interested in trying it out for myself. The list of what this is formulated without was pretty impressive...

So I forked out a whopping $75AUD of my hard earned cash and decided to give it a go. (Yes $75... You can't put a price on comfortable skin I thought...) Vogue Australia recommended it a month prior as well. I am also a sucker for really interesting packaging (more on that later).

There aren't many gel moisturisers out there I have to say. I have combination skin. It is sensitive and dry but also pretty oily and I find that thick moisturisers just leave me feeling like I have a layer of oil on my face. Although that said, it is very hard for me to actually feel like my face in fully quenched all over. Especially around the eyes. The curse of getting older... I have actually never tried a gel, again I thought a gel formulation seems obvious...

B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Gel contains a range of beneficial antioxidants and replenishing ingredients and it has no added chemical fragrances. Since I have a sensitive nose I can still smell the key listed ingredients which are pineapple ceramide, lentil, apple and watermelon... What in the world is pineapple ceramide? Apparently pineapple contains the highest content of ceramide. Pineapple ceramide is a glucose linked ceramide derivative, named as glucoceramide. Glucoceramide has unique biological activity, it reduces melanin contents, induces hyaluronic acid synthase-3 and aquaporin-3 expression. Therefore, glucoceramide treatment contributes skin lightening, moisturising and smoothing effect.

The packaging is pretty sweet too. The brand name Drunk Elephant™ is pretty cool and a bit of fun, although it doesn't feel very large on the pack. It is almost like the owner is letting the formulation do the talking. The format of the container itself is double walled and light & airtight which is great because it does a good job of keeping the formula stable. I am in LOVE with the closure though, and this is one of the reasons why I was happy to part with $75. This format wouldn't have been cheap to produce. Check out my first attempt at video EVER below showing how this bottle opens... (There is always room to improve on anything right???)

I won't lie, this product goes on light and doesn't seem oily on your skin or to the touch. It didn't break me out and it has a really lovely subtle smell. B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Gel has a great comedogenic rating too. Its long list of ingredients and truely water-based formulation is great. However, after testing it for two weeks, I wasn't sure it was actually doing anything for me. I didn't feel like my skin was truely moisturised... I also felt like I needed something else around my eyes.